Scott wrote:[...]let's say a horny 12-year-old girl asks an average 30-year-old man to have sex with her. The man asks the girl if she consents, and the girl even specifically says, "I consent." She resists in no overt way. Do you consider that to be consensual sex or rape?
Jackowens wrote:If by consensual you mean did the girl say "yes", the answer is obvious: it was consensual.
Scott wrote:Of course that's not what consensual means. There's countless examples of non-consensual interactions in which the victim said yes.
Jackowens wrote:I don't understand that. If, instead of the girl's saying "yes", she said the opposite, "no" (or "maybe"), that would have been consensual?
Scott wrote:No.
Jackowens wrote:No what?
Jackowens wrote:You asked me if the sex would have been consensual if the girl said no (or maybe); the obvious answer is no, it would not have been consensual.
Jackowens wrote:Then presumably I'm involved in a fallacy or contradiction. What is it?
Jackowens wrote:It could also be an empirical error on your part. In any case, I'm not sure which specific error is causing you to think that it would be consensual for a 30-year-old man to have sex with a 12-year-old girl when the girl even said, "no."
Jackowens wrote:Between "it could be" and "it could not be", that doesn't get us very far. How about pointing out any empirical error that you see?
If you actually think that if a 12-year-old girl has sex with a 30-year-old man and the girl says
no that the sex would be consensual, then I'm done talking about it with you. That seems to me too blatant of an error--whether it's a fallacy or an empirical error--from which to continue any meaningful discussion.
Incidentally, if you disagree that the answer is no, then you are now also involved in a contradiction because in your post you wrote, "If she says "no", she doesn't [consent]."
Jackowens wrote:If she says "yes", she consents.
No, that is not what the word
consent means and that premise is false. (In which case, you have made what you call an 'empirical error,' by believing a false premise in parallel to
the example argument about Hitler.) I can provide numerous examples of a person merely saying, "yes" to an interaction that is not consensual.
Jackowens wrote:You fail to make a distinction between what the girls says and what the law is.
Incorrect. I made that distinction in post #40:
Scott in post #40 wrote:A young girl is incompetent to consent. Anywhere where the statutes do not agree with that, hopefully the statutes will be changed.
The movie Braveheart told the story of the King ordering his men to rape new wives in certain areas. This rape was legal. The point is that whether or not an activity is actually consensual is more fundamental than the law or legal code in any place at any given time. An act is either rape or its not. If an act is rape, and the law says it isn't rape or isn't illegal--such as in the case of the story told in
the movie Braveheart--then the law is incorrect and hopefully will be changed.
Luckily, I and I think most people agree with the statutes for the most part in regards to there being an age of consent. The laws in most places have it right: Sex between a competent adult and a preteen is rape, and thus it is illegal. If the law in any place at some time said it was not rape if it was legal in that place and time, then the law in that place and time was incorrect.
I wrote that thinking you had already agreed that sex between a 12-year-old girl and a typical 30-year-old man is inherently rape. I'm going to ask you again so I can see if this is where we disagree or if you disagree with me about something else. Please remember that I am NOT asking you if the law in a certain jurisdiction considers this to be rape/illegal or not because the law can be incorrect (as in the case of legalizing the rape of new wives by the King's men). I'm asking you if it really is rape as opposed to consensual sex. Here is the question again, please re-answer it since you misunderstood me before as not making a distinction between what an activity really is and what the law in any place and time merely claims it to be:
Scott wrote:[...]let's say a horny 12-year-old girl asks an average 30-year-old man to have sex with her. The man asks the girl if she consents, and the girl even specifically says, "I consent." She resists in no overt way. Do you consider that to be consensual sex or rape?
Please re-answer that question this time making sure to note that I have pointed out that an act of intercourse is either rape or not regardless of what any one legal code in any one time or place says. If the law in some time-and-place is consistent with the reality, then the law in that time-and-place is correct; otherwise the law in that time-and-place is wrong. Hopefully the law is consistent with the reality. But the reality--whether or not an act of sex is consensual or is rape--is independent of and more fundamental than any country's law.
Pjkeeley wrote:We are all agreed that some beings are incompetent to consent. If we take [invalid consent] and [lack of consent due to an inability to consent] to be equivalent examples of [incompetence to consent] then there is no argument.
I agree. But I don't think that's the main confusion that's causing the misunderstandings and equivocations that give the appearance of false disagreements. If one says let's fine everyone who drives without a driver's license at least $100 when caught, and someone who is caught without license defends himself by saying the he didn't not have a license because he had a forged license which is admittedly an invalid license, we wouldn't think that person is actually failing to realize that having an 'invalid license' is a form of having 'no license.' Nonetheless, I agree that in this discussion there is a lot of misunderstanding and equivocation going on as opposed to real disagreement.